Tag Archives: poverty

Too early to reopen schools : look at Europe

Posted on April 30, 2020 by reclaimschools

Some European countries have started reopening schools as part of a relaxation of the Coronavirus lockdown. Not surprisingly, there are some calls to do the same here so maybe it’s worth making some comparisons. Firstly, Britain is one of the … Continue reading →

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No joke – a brutal class war

Posted on December 1, 2019 by terrywrigley

The extreme social divisions in today’s Britain are not just a case of unfair distribution. They are the consequence of a brutal class war conducted by the superrich on the working class. The rhetoric since 2010 has been about Austerity … Continue reading →

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Child poverty – Conservative rule

Posted on December 1, 2019 by reclaimschools

  Britain is one of the richest countries in the world, but with scandalous levels of poverty. Child poverty has grown massively since the Conservative-led government took over in 2010, and is set to increase even more. According to the … Continue reading →

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Are SATs closing the poverty gap?

Posted on June 13, 2019 by reclaimschools

Based on an elaborate formula invented by his officials, schools minister Nick Gibb is “proud we’re closing the gap between rich and poor pupils.”  A more straightforward measure shows that nothing has changed. Last summer 54% of children eligible for free … Continue reading →

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Ofsted – a fairer future?

Posted on February 3, 2019 by reclaimschools

Rumours are circulating that schools in poor areas will stand a better chance of getting a good Ofsted grade, but where is this coming from? There are no such promises in the new draft Inspection Framework. In fact, page 11 shows … Continue reading →

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Progress 8 – a biased and misleading measure

Posted on January 25, 2019 by reclaimschools

Progress 8 was supposed to be a fair measure of secondary school ‘effectiveness’. New research confirms that it is seriously biased against schools with more disadvantaged pupils. It is vital to expose this injustice because scoring ‘well below average’ on Progress … Continue reading →

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Test scores and poverty 2: parents’ education

Posted on December 14, 2018 by reclaimschools

The mountains of data which overwhelm schools are next to useless, because the categories they use don’t measure up to reality. A major reason is that the categories ‘Free School Meals’ and ‘disadvantaged’ don’t reflect the serious burden of poverty … Continue reading →

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Test scores and poverty – it doesn’t add up

Posted on December 5, 2018 by reclaimschools

England’s schools are drowning in data. Everybody is obsessed with accountability statistics, from Ofsted down to the school cat. This  obsession with data distorts the way we look at pupils and their education. 300 spreadsheet columns running from A to … Continue reading →

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Progress 8 another unfair measure

Posted on February 24, 2017 by reclaimschools

In a recent post Progress 8 – another attack on working-class schools  we drew on Education Datalab research to show how this supposedly fair measure is weighted against schools serving poorer communities. This is because young people growing up in poverty … Continue reading →

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Progress 8 – another attack on working-class schools

Posted on January 21, 2017 by reclaimschools

Progress 8 was supposed to be fair. It has become just another way of hammering schools with the most disadvantaged students. Its designers clearly took care to avoid some of the problems with counting 5 A*-Cs, which often led to a concentration … Continue reading →

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